The Primal Hunter

To kick or not to kick. That is the question.

Well, alright, it wasn’t really a question but just Jake’s default way of handling any opponent he met in the arena. He knew full well that the situation couldn’t continue forever, but for now, his stats just outmatched everyone else by quite a margin.

It quickly became apparent that most of his opponents didn’t even have 10 in all stats, much less 16 in even their lowest, like Jake. This meant Jake thoroughly beat any and all opponents he met just by easily overpowering them. He was – metaphorically speaking - an adult professional fighter beating up a bunch of kids to quickly advance in ranks. If simply skipping ranks was possible, he would have gone for that, and on the third day, Jake even tried to ask the Battlemaster if it was possible to meet some higher-ranked opponent for a promotion match. To which the middle-aged man answered in a totally not judgemental tone:

“Oh, I am sure you would want that. Hey, do you think anyone else here wants the same? You’re confident, so surely that is enough, right? What complaints could your opponent possibly have for getting matched with some low-rank opponent who doesn’t even pull in a good audience? Surely, the fight itself would also go without a hitch, and with a victory, there would to so much glory in beating someone several ranks below yourself. And who would possibly feel humiliated if they lost to someone expected to be so much weaker than themselves? Yeah, definitely no one, so let me do you a favor here and now and change the centuries-old rules of the Colosseum just because you don’t feel like advancing the usual way! Who needs proper rules and a ranking system anyway? So old-fashioned. Having everyone fight everyone would be so much more exci-“

Jake cut him off after that, having gotten the point. The Battlemaster was a bit short with him the rest of the day after that, but luckily he was back to normal the next morning. However, during his first match on the fourth day, he found himself in an odd situation.

Standing ready behind the lowering gate, Jake looked at his beastkin opponent. She was a woman who was nearly two meters tall and had metal claws strapped to her hands. She definitely looked menacing and ready to pounce.

“Combatants, enter the arena!”

The moment the gate lowered, he walked forward as his opponent charged, yelling loudly:

“Heard you’re good at kicking! Let’s see you kick my claws, you pathetic human!”

With an annoyed frown, Jake looked at her and decided to get the fight over with right away. He even felt a surge of killing intent due to her comment as he considered employing the secret technique known as the dropkick. His eyes met with hers… and then things got weird. Right as their eyes met, she came to an abrupt stop and jumped back with wide eyes, hair standing up on her back.

Jake stood confused as she stared at him for a moment. Her sneer was gone, and her form lowered as she slowly backed away, looking perplexed. Jake took a step forward, making her jump back as she yelled loudly.

“I surrender!”

Wait, what?

More confused than before, he wanted to ask the beastkin what the hell was going on… but before he even properly registered that the fight was over, she had run out of the arena faster than she had arrived. Jake had no idea what was going on initially… until he got an idea.

In the next fight, he tested his theory.

Jake considered something he hadn’t really thought much of for a long time. Everyone had an instinct; he knew that. It was natural, and while the enlightened races tended to have weaker ones than beasts, it was still there, with beastkin often having instincts often comparable to or even surpassing some beasts. Why did this matter?

a Bloodline due to its peculiar effects. This leakage of presence back then didn’t really have any major impact under normal circumstances, as it was pretty normal to leak a bit of aura in the lower grades, but for Jake, it had quite the implications outside of being a neon

vividly remembered several beasts avoiding him during the Tutorial. Raptors began to steer clear of him when they felt his aura and ran on sight. Even after coming back from the Tutorial,

one tended to naturally learn just by being in the, well, presence of other living beings. After reaching higher grades, Jake couldn’t use his presence to directly pressure anyone around his own level of power without using Pride of the Malefic Viper, even if he had a powerful Bloodline. Not because it was less powerful than before but because people had learned to resist it. The only way he could

bunch of E and even D-grades shitless with his presence? Sure, but that wouldn’t be worth anything. No, the only normal application of unleashing your presence was to intimidate people and flex your power. Semi-uniquely for Jake, he could also use it to train others to resist presences faster, but he had found that just being around him seemed to

he could tell. They didn’t have any exposure to powerful presences and thus had no resistance. Partly related to this was the second reason: everyone’s souls were weak. The third difference was

powerful response others had to his Bloodline. The instinctual response it instilled in anyone

little experiment, Jake made a human guy piss himself in his next match as he unleashed his full presence and murderous intent. He even infused mana into it right as the match began, scaring the poor guy shitless. The experiment was a big success, but he also knew

hard but focused on only one aspect of his presence: Suppression. No, calling it suppressing was wrong. It wasn’t quite the

Fear.

human would experience when confronted with a bear or a lion before the system. It was the kind of fear that solicited a response from his foe. One that triggered fight or flight

fight. However, she was unable to keep calm and lost her cool as her instincts took over, making her decide to charge while yelling, earning

as he wanted to work on something else. Because he did have one other skill that he felt was at least tangentially related to

the

attacks by looking directly at his opponent’s souls. More accurately, he directly attacked their Soulshapes through an ocular connection, which was also

very interesting aspect of Gaze was also how it scaled. Its effects in E and C-grade were effectively identical, and in both grades, it barely took any energy. In fact, it took a proportionally minuscule level of energy no matter what grade he was in.

really consciously infuse anything related to his Bloodline when using Gaze… but who is to say

has seen his gaze reflected in the eyes

Sight and Gaze of the Apex Predator. Jake earlier considered how he infused instinctive fear into his opponents… much akin to an Apex Predator. Which was exactly how the skill worked before

The Apex Predator has grown to where their foes cower

This was also one of the purposes of the Challenge Dungeon based on Jake’s estimations; to allow the ones doing it to truly reflect upon their paths

to incite instinctual fear in his opponents. Many fights still ended with him kicking his foe either because he failed or because the person resisted the fear effect. Sometimes it also just made them mad. Which did make it clear that even if he did succeed, it

as Jake continued his six matches a day – five regular fights and one

out other areas of the Colosseum with all the downtime he had. After becoming a Fighter, he had even gained access to a bigger training area, but he

Jake was beginning to feel the pressure by now. In the last two matches, he had to use dozens of kicks to achieve victory, and he even ended up getting his clothes scratched a few times as he

a feeling this promotion match would be the end of his kicking-only spree. At this point, he continued just out of pure vanity, with the only changes to his fighting style

waiting, he quickly checked his

Be promoted from

Journeyman Fighter

Colosseum Points: 765